American scientists are preparing to update Covid-19 vaccines to deal with the coronavirus variants that are now circulating in the UK and South Africa, said Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday. At the same time, Moderna said that while his Covid vaccine worked against the variants, he was developing a new form to be used as a booster injection.
“We are doing this today to be ahead of the curve if necessary,” said Dr. Tal Zaks, Medical Director of Moderna, to the New York Times. “I think of it as an insurance policy.
“I don’t know if we need this and I hope not.”
Fauci, the leading infectious disease specialist in the U.S. who is advising Joe Biden, spoke with NBC and CBS early Monday morning, the day after Covid’s number of cases in the U.S. exceeded 25 million, with about 420,000. deaths.
Fauci said that the new variants of the coronavirus were not only more infectious, but also did not respond well to the monoclonal antibodies that were used to treat patients with Covid. He said he was especially concerned about the South African variant, which he described as “different and more sinister than that of the United Kingdom”.
“The data has not been officially released, but taking a look at the preliminary data that UK scientists have analyzed, I am quite convinced that there is a degree of increase in the severity of the actual infection, that we really have to keep an eye out,” he said. Fauci.
Fauci said there is also “a very slight and modest decrease” in the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines against these variants, but “there is sufficient cushioning with the vaccines we have that we still consider them effective against the UK strain and the African strain. southern.
“We really need to be sure that we are going to start, and have already done so, to prepare, if necessary, to update vaccines,” said Fauci. “We are already taking steps in that direction, despite the fact that the vaccines we have now work.”
The launch of vaccines made by Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna has not been easy, the president’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, told NBC on Sunday that the Trump administration left Biden with little to work on.
“The vaccine distribution process, especially outside health homes and hospitals for the community as a whole, didn’t really exist when we came to the White House,” said Klain.